Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside questioned on improvements to Ranger Pet/Necromancer Minion AI

Nurse over at the Ranger forum https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Interview-About-Ranger-Pets/first#post1467324 shared Minion AI is mentioned (skip to 11:03).

That was really funy
So fixing minions ai will meake class OP
Yes fixing pets its the same that fix warior to use 2 greatswords
realy??
Ofc it is- becose if minions will work in fight some pll may use it
So this is their “balance procedure” – necro have 2 uniques skills mechanic (wells, minions- like they type) where minions not work becose of ai. So beter let necro use whels only
if we can teake minions, and whels in build we will be so op- like a warior have 2 greatswords
hahah
I think this dude really :
1. dont know what he is said about this, or
2. this is a standard balance mechanic

cheer

Yeah I was a little upset by that comment he made. He pretty much said that us wanting our class mechanics to function correctly and be usable was just us kittening and lobbying for power over other classes.

I don’t often get angry. I don’t normally care about how designers choose to make their game function, and I respect their choices to balance things however they want.
That being said, it is simply unacceptable to essentially have a mechanic for the class literally NOT function in order to balance things. Necromancer pets are there and they should work. Having them only attack what you are targeting or only aggroing on enemies that are within 500ft of you (perhaps whether you are attacking them or not) is a game balance choice. Having them literally do nothing is not a way to balance them.

I think he just misinterpreted the question. Even if the AI has no bugs whatsoever there is always a way to make it “better”, like with smarter pathing that leads the opponent or something. I think that’s how he was answering the question. I doubt he actually meant to say that bugs as severe as minions standing around are intentional because they are balanced that way. They could easily just change damage/health numbers to compensate for the better AI if they feel they are too strong.

If a function of the game doesn’t work it should be fixed. Leaving unfixed just for the sake of balance is immoral. If it needs to be tweaked after it is fixed, in the ever-distant future, then it should be tweaked.

It’s like leaving the having Necromancers not benefit from the Soul Reaping tree because “they have the highest hp in the game!”

BobJoeXXI.2493:

If a function of the game doesn’t work it should be fixed. Leaving unfixed just for the sake of balance is immoral. If it needs to be tweaked after it is fixed, in the ever-distant future, then it should be tweaked.

It’s like leaving the having Necromancers not benefit from the Soul Reaping tree because “they have the highest hp in the game!”

Overreaction is not helpful. The Minions have been gradually fixed and are better now than they were at the start. We are probably close to 70 percent of the time the Flesh Golem attacks the right target, and 95 percent of the time he will eventually start attacking. The rest work almost immediately as long as you don’t switch constantly.

It’s easy to “over-react” to a comment as ridiculous as Chris’ there, but he probably just didn’t understand the question/doesn’t actually know that minion/pet AI is terrible.

Bas is actually right (so tempted to be a kitten and write “for once” :P haha) here though, AI is improving significantly and this is coming from one of the most harsh critics of their AI on these forums. I still run the flesh golem for world PvE and actually haven’t had an encounter in recent days in which he hasn’t eventually joined the fight. It feels good. There is definitely work to do, and large groups still mess with the AI as well as objects, but things are looking up for minion AI if they continue making improvements as they have been.

Might as well take this as an opportunity to thank the devs for the work they’ve done on this so far, so: Thanks guys, great work! It is very much appreciated!

Bas.7406:

BobJoeXXI.2493:

If a function of the game doesn’t work it should be fixed. Leaving unfixed just for the sake of balance is immoral. If it needs to be tweaked after it is fixed, in the ever-distant future, then it should be tweaked.

It’s like leaving the having Necromancers not benefit from the Soul Reaping tree because “they have the highest hp in the game!”

Overreaction is not helpful. The Minions have been gradually fixed and are better now than they were at the start. We are probably close to 70 percent of the time the Flesh Golem attacks the right target, and 95 percent of the time he will eventually start attacking. The rest work almost immediately as long as you don’t switch constantly.

I haven’t seen any significant changes to the minion AI since beta, in fact sometimes it seems like they’re getting worse. The fact is that since beta a core class mechanic has been utterly broken. Whether you believe it’s working 70% of the time or 98% of the time, the fact is it does not work as intended and is thus broken. Especially in a competitive area like Spvp or a challenging area like dungeons — randomly working correctly isn’t good enough.

It’s great that people can work around or adapt to the broken state and pitfalls of the class — and I don’t say that sarcastically. It really is great to see players who love this class stick with it. It is, however, unfortunate to see people defending the developers ignorance or willful neglect of what could be a fun and effective build.
Anyway, I don’t mean for my tone to sound abrasive or confrontational. I just want to see my favorite class fixed.

They have fixed minion AI quite a bit since beta. Flesh Golem is the best example, he used to be absolutely ridiculous; anything considered an enemy within a huge radius was automatically attacked, no matter what. Now he is much better about peeling off once they get away or you stop attacking. I agree it needs fixing as it doesn’t work as it should right now, but it takes time.

Bhawb.7408:

They have fixed minion AI quite a bit since beta. Flesh Golem is the best example, he used to be absolutely ridiculous; anything considered an enemy within a huge radius was automatically attacked, no matter what. Now he is much better about peeling off once they get away or you stop attacking. I agree it needs fixing as it doesn’t work as it should right now, but it takes time.

True. But he still doesn’t attack what you want him to attack. Given that, he is horridly broken. A minion just sitting put doesn’t help you out and is broken as broken can be.

They just made him less of an inconvenience to have as a skill by not needlessly attacking everything within sight. They still haven’t fixed minions to the amount that they are working as intended. If they are working as intended in this state ANet should be ashamed of themselves. I give them the benefit of the doubt that they indeed see it as a problem and are working on it. Unfortunately, they work on these things at their pace and that means we won’t be seeing any big changes in the near future because of the major updates to other things.

@bobjoe
Forgive me if this comes off rude or arrogant. When was the last time you played Minions?

Every single minion will attack your target 100 percent of the time if you begin your attack with a single target ability. They will not attack if you begin with Marks, aoe abilities, or anything that might hit multiple targets at one time. They will sit and wait for you to focus than wait a bit more to make sure your target is not going to change.

The tricks that we use to force them to engage the target we want them to face are in place so that you can focus them on one target earlier than they typically would. They do not all stand around and do nothing. In fact if you just run up and attack an npc everyone of them will attack. The Flesh Golem has it’s issues, but 70 percent attack time is a huge upgrade compared to the 40 percent it used to be.

To top it all off, the minions used to not disengage once attacking for the longest time, now once you run to a certain point they will break off the attack. It’s significantly better than it was at launch.

My best guess is the reason for the lag and response time issues has a lot to do with trying to tie the minions into our targeting.

Bas.7406:

Every single minion will attack your target 100 percent of the time if you begin your attack with a single target ability. They will not attack if you begin with Marks, aoe abilities, or anything that might hit multiple targets at one time. They will sit and wait for you to focus than wait a bit more to make sure your target is not going to change.

Interesting that you say this but yet about 40% of the time (About 95% for the Jagged Horror from Reanimator) my minions stand around doing nothing, meanwhile I take out 3-4 enemies from 100% health with only Single Target abilities (Dagger #1 as it turns out)

I don’t do fancy “Hit something then swap targets” to confuse them, I just run up to a dude that’s hitting me, wail on them with single target stuff and look back at my minions whom often are standing around doing nothing, being killed by something while doing nothing or attacking an inanimate object I’ve done 0 damage to.

Though when they work, they do pretty well at keep up with target swapping in larger fights changing targets immediately once a single target ability has been used on a new target.

My minions are quite reliable now, start with a long range staff #1 and they do their thin.

Yeah, my minions are pretty reliable. There is the rare time that mesmer clones totally throw them for a loop, or they decide to stop the fight when I get downed, but all in all it is pretty rare. I’d love a fix, but people exaggerate the issue.

I suspect Nerva two posts down from the one linked touches on why crap don’t get fixed. pets/minions, at least to some degree, work in SPVP. Ergo ANet won’t touch them, or flat out do not see the problem, because balance in SPVP is prioritized over balance in PVE/WVW. Because if they become too smart suddenly 5 necromancers become 15 threats. Or in other words, necromancers become a team/squad of one.